Tag Archives: pastiche

Arts & Society, Poetry and Poetics

Radical Poetry

1 Comment

The radical poetry of 100 years ago was not radical in terms of style. It was conventional in terms of style and this doomed much of it (though not all of it) to being forgotten and rightfully so, but note that the folk songs and protest songs and blues songs of that period were not forgotten and still matter and register with intelligent and artistic peoples. Why? Because they were not written in the language of one’s betters, and therefore not some cheap and clumsy knock off of the prevailing aesthetic of the most middle brow literary magazines.

In point of fact, it was the urban decadence of cabaret, parlor music, vaudeville, and fast talking medicine show sharpies, but most of all, of the “othered” in terms of Blacks, Jews, and Irish that reinvigorated the pastiche and cut up sensibility of the high modernists, and this wave of influence has not yet abated.

In that sense, the accidental poetry of the people, that which is not striving to sound “good,” but is in love with its own sound productions is still the most pervasive influence on every form of poetry with the possible exception of surrealism, and one could make a very good argument that French surrealism, its particular zeitgeist, was made possible and viable by cabaret and circus performers, and then silent film performers (harlequin to Laurel and Hardy) who performed the surreal in their acts and on film.

Freud and Jung were after thoughts to give the surreal acceptable “forefathers.” A poem is first and foremost an organization and shaping of words that allows consciousness to escape its own worst grooves–both for good or ill (since some grooves are actually beneficial) or which makes those grooves refined to the point where they are strong and supple, and energy enhancing–the organized energy of life itself–what Blake meant when he privileged the imagination over nature and said that exuberance is beauty–the current of how one moves through one’s very being.

For all my ranting, and cynicism, and anger at my age, I have never not wanted to be alive–and to enter this current of being alive is my language. So for me: not perfection, but the force that moves through nature–not the mirroring of nature, but the homage to its storms and vital ugliness/beauty through words–the way mirrors would break if left in the wilderness–but the wind in their breakage, the weather of time and water in their distortions: I still want to write a poem that gives me the pleasures of walking on the shore of the sea in the fall when all the tourists have gone home, and the air is cool but not unbearable, and I am with my Emily and my daughter Clare (I have read poems by Vallejo that did that for me).

I want the word “my” to be as selfish and as unapologetic as an animal–my, my sun, my jacket rifled by the wind, my wife and daughter with me–my tribe, and on the 100th reading, the thousandth reading, salt in my spit and, if I am alone, fiercely alone with a whole congregation of stars.

I want to write a poem that takes on not the semblance of life, but its full and necessary ferocity, and on the last reading, is worn, eroded, impacted by the years, but far from being worn out–anciently sudden, and suddenly ancient: I want that broken music.

This is a political desire–if by political we mean to procure the necessary justice, and peace and compassion for such a life and aesthetic to exist. I want all of human life to be able to rest long enough to swallow its own spit and stare up at the stars, and hear the promise of some covenant–anything other than the drowning out of the soul by this twaddle we call the contemporary world. This is the extension of my own right to be fiercely and troublingly alive to every man, woman, and child.

I don’t want to save anyone: I want them to live. There is a big difference between wanting to save someone and wanting them to live. Those who save, kill all but what they will to be saved. Fuck that: I want everyone to live, and that is truly radical–to want even the mosquito on that beach, and the black fly, and the stranger’s dog who comes up and sticks its nasty wet snout in my equally nasty crotch and slobbers on me to be alive, and for me to be alive as I get royally pissed off–but in the full brio of being this animal who prays. I don’t want perfect conditions. I don’t want constructs. My poems will provide the leash on which the fierce love and sprawl of my life is lead. I want to be walked well by the tongue of speech–until I am dead.

Arts & Society

Core Values of the Redux Movement

Leave a comment

Great art and a true, living (not institutionalized) culture arise not from a series of snobs and gatekeepers, but from the inner necessity and desire of people to express the 7 kinds of affectual brain: play, courtship, grief, seeking, anger (outrage, scandal, impiety), caring (tenderness, friendship, affection, affinity), and fear. In terms of fear, grief, anger, and courtship, the mode of expression is often highly ceremonial as in the cults of sacrifice or festivity, and may be said to act as a form of catharsis (Aristotle/ Dionysian). This might be likened to a controlled burn. In terms of seeking, care, and play Plato’s concept of being ever nearer to the perfect or archetypal form prevails. In such a case, wit, self-consciousness, parody, pastiche, and intelligence are the order of the day, and this may be seen as Apollonian, but the two forms of affective expression overlap, especially where courtship admits an element of play, and where grief admits an element of stoic acceptance. Language seeks to both hide and express the affective mechanisms, but, in terms of play and seeking, the comedy of manners and rules of engagement are far more toward the hiding end of the spectrum.

Redux sees these expressions of affective brain as the true basis for art beyond the logocentric and power-based dynamics of critics, gatekeepers, and academic institutions. Furthermore, we believe gatekeepers, academics, and critics are incapable of doing anything except impeding the flow of affective brain expression. At one point, such impedance channeled the expressions in more refined and artistic ways, but Redux believes this is no longer the case. With the break down between pop and so called high culture, academia often resembles an opera singer singing “play that funky music white boy.” Entire semesters devoted to applying Agamben to songs by Nirvana seem as absurd and pretentious as those long drawn out rock reviews one used to see during the heyday of gonzo journalism. Of course, this impedance is what passes for taste and “standards.”

Redux believes tastes and standards arise organically from the desires of those to whom expression is necessary (virtually everyone) and, if left the fuck alone, greater and more truthful art would emerge, but the institutions that now control presses, readings, publications, and awards have created a self-perpetuating cycle of corruption. No one may receive money or attention or respect without the mechanisms of the gatekeeper. In retrospect, and in the long run, history often provides a corrective to these assholes, but not often enough. John Clare was moldering in his grave for over 50 years before gatekeepers seeking to find their own scholastic niche decided to dig him up. So, core values:

1. Art is a free for all and should be practiced as such with presence and participation first. Standards and a knowledge of good and bad art will rise organically–without the prompting of enlightened beings. If not, well, a better time will be had by giving up the snob fests.

2. Rather than accepting money from institutions who control the arts, artists should be funding their own work by using the refuse materials of this throw away culture: instead of canvas, discarded wood, pizza boxes, etc.; instead of university lit mags, small, cheap broadsides and chaps that can be sold at readings. Instead of awards, consensus of peers. Instead of agreed upon standards, a continued and ongoing testing of and resistance to all standards. A hatred of the little glossy fucking boxes we call literary magazines. More imagination more oddness, more invention–less “Quality” in the sense of a standard mold set.

3. Writers should buy local–books by local poets, CDs by local musicians–creating art monads–pockets of living culture done in small rather than large frame works. Artists should start their own collective book stores, lending libraries. Painters and musicians ought to be doing quick, easy exhibitions and concerts. I blame artists seeking to be validated. By who? Fuck ‘em.

4. Creative writing teachers ought to be free to teach in a more creative, less institutionalized manner.

5. Self publishing should not be discouraged but accepted as viable. Let’s stop the con. Most presses for poetry are now cooperatives. I would rather create a new chap for every reading rather than have some press say whether I was any good or not. I don’t believe them. Books are published for many reasons other than quality, and some writers are denied publication because they don’t fit a niche. I will never sell one of my official books again.

6. More generosity among artists, more true attempts to support each other locally. I no longer will give my support to institutions that reject me as an artist, but want my money. Fuck them.